Dorothy Hamill hits the ice in O.C. – and the dance floor

Olympic figure skating champion Dorothy Hamill will skate with Stars On Ice at Honda Center on Saturday, March 2. Two weeks later she makes her debut as a contestant on the new season of ABC's "Dancing With The Stars."COURTESY OF STARS ON ICE

'Dancing With The Stars'

Figure skater Dorothy Hamill isn't really that old but to hear the Olympic gold medalist tell it she's an old woman in a young woman's game.

Two games, actually. For not only is Hamill on tour now with Stars On Ice, with a stop in Orange County on Saturday, but she's also just signed on as one of 11 celebrity contestants on ABC's "Dancing With The Stars."

"It's kind of crazy," says Hamill, who at 56 isn't really all that old at all. "I didn't know I'd be doing double duty!"

Stars On Ice, of course, is where you'd expect to see the skater who won gold and hearts with her performance at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. Yet while she toured for many years with the Ice Capades, the original Stars On Ice tour and other skate shows, it's been at least five years since she went on tour, and getting back into performance shape wasn't easy, Hamill says.

"When the invitation came to me I had about a month and a half," she says. "It takes more than that to get in shape at my age. I'd been skating, but not sort of performance level, just for fun, for myself. In ice skates that were probably 11 years old.

"So it's not been easy, and I can't say that I'm perfectly there and able to do what I'd like to be able to do, or that which was easy for me to do in the past. But it's been good. I've missed it."

Part of what she'd missed was the camaraderie of hanging out with other top skaters, Hamill says. "I sort of feel like the old lady mom trying not to embarrass myself or anyone else. And they're very sweet to me and I really enjoy our time together."

This version of Stars On Ice includes such stars as Ekaterina Gordeeva, Ilia Kulik and Kurt Browning, for whom this is the four-time world champion's farewell tour.

"The personalities and the skaters on this tour as just as nice as can be," she says. "You just don't get any better than this if you handpicked the ones you wanted to skate with."

Her role in the show includes a solo number, a duet with Browning, and several of the ensemble numbers in the show.

Appearing on "Dancing With The Stars," meanwhile, had been a long-time dream but once which Hamill figured wasn't ever going to happen.

"I've been a fan of the show for a long time," she says. "Years ago, maybe second season or third season, I think there was a call to my agent and I was in the middle of one of those (skate) tours and it just wasn't possible."

She watched fellow Olympic figure skaters Kristi Yamaguchi and Evan Lysacek compete on the show (they finished first and second in their separate seasons) and thought she'd missed her shot.

"On the bus in Japan (with Stars On Ice) someone said you should do 'Dancing With The Stars,' and I said, 'No, they'll never ask me,'" Hamill says. "Then about a week ago I got a phone call and they said, 'We would love to have you join.'"

After talking it over with her husband and a friend, she decided to go for it, only to again end up feeling like the mother of the crew when she met her fellow "Dancing" contestants on Tuesday.

"It was just shocking to me to realize that I am the oldest one there – and not just by six months!" Hamill says of meeting celebrities such as Zendaya Coleman, a 16-year-old Disney Channel star and 18-year-old Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman.

She's never danced ballroom before and says that despite some similarities between figure skating and dancing she's worried about how different it will be.

"The technique is so different," Hamill says. "So that's going to be a challenge for me. While it looks easy I've never been very good on my feet. I've always been kind of klutzy."

"I don't know how any of (her skating skills) will translate to the being on the dance floor in high heels," Hamill says. "I can barely walk in high heels, so it's going to be amusing."

Olympic figure skating champion Dorothy Hamill will skate with Stars On Ice at Honda Center on Saturday, March 2. Two weeks later she makes her debut as a contestant on the new season of ABC's "Dancing With The Stars." COURTESY OF STARS ON ICE
Dorothy Hamill skates here during the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. Hamill, who won the gold medal for figure skating at that Olympics, appears as part of Stars On Ice at Honda Center in Anaheim on March 2, 2013. TONY DUFFY, GETTY IMAGES
Dorothy Hamill takes a bow during her introduction as part of the cast of celebrities for the new season of "Dancing With The Stars." RICK ROWELL, ABC
Dorothy Hamill, center, smiles while wearing her gold medel at the Winter Olympics skating competition in 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria. TONY DUFFY, GETTY IMAGES
Dorothy Hamill of Riverside, Conn., proudly displays the gold medal she received in innsbruck, Austria, Friday night, February 13, 1976, after her victory in the women's figure skating competition at the 12th Winter Olympic Games. ASSOCIATED PRESS
"Dancing with the Stars" this season will feature 11 new celebrities and their professional partners. Seen here, standing from left are dancers Val Chmerkovskiy and Tristan MacManus, figure skater Dorothy Hamill, actress Zendaya Coleman, actor Ingo Rademacher, dancer Kym Johnson, country singer Kellie Pickler, NFL player Jacoby Jones, country singer Wynonna Judd, dancer Tony Dovolani, dancer Cheryl Burke, dancer Sharna Burgess, reality TV star Lisa Vanderpump, dancer Gleb Savchenko, dancer Lindsay Arnold, Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, comedian D.L. Hughley. Sitting, from left, are dancer Karina Smirnoff, dancer Derek Hough, dancer Mark Ballas, boxer Victor Ortiz, and comedian Andy Dick. RICK ROWELL, ABC
This year, Stars on Ice makes history as skating icon Dorothy Hamill returns to the ice in what will be Kurt Browning's final US tour. From left: Ekaterina Gordeeva, Brent Bommentre, Kimberly Navarro, Ryan Bradley, Kurt Browning, Dorothy Hamill, Ilia Kulik, Sinead Kerr, John Kerr, Joannie Rochette and Shawn Sawyer. JASON H. THOMPSON, COURTESY OF STARS ON ICE

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